The Money Printer: Viral Giveaways - an Interview with Jack Paxton

When most founders hear the word “giveaway,” they imagine expensive prizes, low-quality leads, or outdated marketing tactics.

But for Jack Paxton, former growth marketer at AppSumo and marketing strategist at Topaz Labs, giveaways were the engine behind some of the most explosive growth those companies ever experienced.

Today, Jack is the co-founder of BlitzRocket (formerly VYPER), a platform designed to turn giveaways into automated viral acquisition machines.

We sat down with him to understand why giveaways still work, why they’re so profitable, and how BlitzRocket is powering the next generation of viral growth.

From AppSumo to Topaz Labs: How Giveaways Became a Growth Lever

Q: Jack, you’ve worked at two iconic companies — AppSumo and Topaz Labs. How did giveaways become part of your growth strategy?

Jack Paxton:
At AppSumo, we were always testing high-leverage marketing. Ads, SEO, affiliates — everything. But giveaways were one of the best ways to grow. Noah Kagan actually created one of the original giveaway apps - King Sumo, but once he essentially abandoned the project, my team took the idea and refined it. Now we're utilizing AI to make it the best app on the market for getting you viral growth.

Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo, didn’t just use giveaways — he helped define and scale the modern viral giveaway tactic in online marketing. His experiments and public write-ups laid out a roadmap that many growth marketers now follow.

The early breakthrough

In 2012, Kagan wrote a guest post for Andrew Chen titled “Zero to 147,973 email subscribers by… AppSumo”, in which he revealed that over a roughly four-year period they’d run 25+ giveaways and generated more than half a million subscribers — along with nearly $900,000 in revenue from that channel alone. Andrew Chen

One standout stat: by running giveaways they achieved gross profit per new subscriber of about $0.83 on average. That may sound modest, but when you scale to tens or hundreds of thousands of leads, it becomes very meaningful.

The viral mechanics he locked in

What Kagan pushed hard on was not just “give away something nice” but building referral-incentives into the giveaway. For example: you sign up, you get one entry; you share your unique referral link on Twitter/Facebook, and for each friend who enters via your link, you get bonus entries. This turned entrants into promoters.

Here are some of the tactics he explicitly endorsed:

• Pick a prize that aligns tightly with your target audience (not a generic giveaway).
• Use a “lucky URL” or referral link to reward sharing.
• Time-limit the campaign and add urgency (so “enter by X date”).
• Seed the initial entrants (via email or influencers) to kick the viral loop

What this added up to: giveaways that didn't just collect leads but massively multiplied reach via sharing.

Results that got attention

Kagan’s team found that certain giveaways were far more profitable than others.

For example: a giveaway costing ~$2,500 yielded 3,846 new subscribers and ~$26,572 gross profit ( ~$6.90 profit per subscriber ) — one of their best-performing ones.

On the flip side: a giveaway of 2 MacBook Airs attracted ~48,187 subscribers but only ~$11,550 gross profit (~$0.24 profit per subscriber). In other words: big leads don’t always mean big profit.

Such data led Kagan to conclude: giveaways can drive huge growth — but only if structured properly and aligned with monetisation (not just lead volume).

Impact on the broader marketing space

Because Kagan documented his strategy openly (Blog posts, the guest post, the “Week 9” post where he walked through their first giveaway of Dropbox Pro for life) many marketers adopted his approach.

You’ll find the referral link + viral loop design in dozens of giveaway tools and campaigns today, including Blitz Rocket.

In short: he helped turn giveaways from “nice promotional idea” into a repeatable growth tactic with measurable ROI.

Why this matters for your giveaway strategy

When you look at your own campaign (or when you’re building it via a platform like BlitzRocket), the lessons from Kagan include:

• Don’t pick a prize just because it’s expensive — pick a relevant prize your audience cares about.
• Design sharing/bonus actions so that participants want to refer friends (they get something).
• Track cost per lead, profit per lead — not just number of entrants.
• Use urgency + incentivised sharing to amplify reach without purely relying on paid ads.
• Repeat but avoid over-doing — Kagan noted diminishing returns if you run giveaways too frequently.

Why Giveaways Print Money (Not Lose It)

Q: Many founders think giveaways generate low quality leads. What are they missing?

Jack Paxton:

Yeah there is a problem with giveaways generating bad leads. That's actually an issue we addressed with this latest version of Blitz Rocket. There's multiple layers of security and we use AI to analyze your entrants to make sure they're high quality and not just bots.

In general though, giveaways work because they combine three things:

1. Low acquisition cost — Leads from giveaways are often 10–20x cheaper than through ads alone.
2. Viral mechanics — People share giveaways naturally because it increases their odds of winning.
3. Immediate monetization — You can pitch a flash sale or a special offer right after someone enters. These convert extremely well.

A giveaway isn’t an expense — it’s an audience-building machine that pays for itself quickly, and then continues paying over time through email marketing and retargeting.

Inside the Topaz Labs Playbook

Q: Can you share an example from your Topaz Labs experience?

Jack Paxton:
One of our most successful giveaways was to give a drone as well giving away free access to Topaz Labs.

We also timed it with Black Friday to build the hype for a massive holiday weekend.

The campaigns generated over 100k new subscribers.

Those subscribers didn’t just sit on the list — many bought deals, took advantage of flash sales, and became long-term customers. It was one of the highest ROI marketing activities we ever ran.

Q: Topaz Labs sells premium photo editing software. Did giveaways still work at that price point?

Jack Paxton:
Even better, honestly. Photographers love presets, plugins, and bundles. So giveaways attracted hyper-relevant leads. After a single giveaway, our email list would spike by tens of thousands. And because photographers tend to buy multiple plugins, the long-term LTV was huge.

Especially since we ran the campaign before Black Friday, the results were enormous for Topaz Labs.

From Strategy to Software: The Birth of BlitzRocket

Q: That leads us to BlitzRocket. What motivated you to turn giveaways into a SaaS product?

Jack Paxton:
Running giveaways manually is rough. You have to manage:

• landing pages
• tracking referrals
• preventing fraud
• bonus actions
• integrations
• follow-ups
• analytics
• monetization flows

Most brands loved the results but hated the workload.

We created BlitzRocket.com to automate the entire process:

• Prebuilt templates
• 20+ share/bonus actions
• Fraud detection
• Email integrations
• Revenue and referral tracking

Instead of spending days duct-taping tools together, brands can launch a viral giveaway in minutes and watch the leads roll in.

Giveaways in 2026: Still a Money Printer

Q: A lot of marketers think giveaways “used to work” but don’t anymore. What’s your take?

Jack Paxton:
Giveaways work better now because:

• Ads are more expensive
• Attention spans are shorter
• Creators want collaborative content
• People love gamified experiences
• Social platforms reward shareable content

A well-executed giveaway doesn’t just grow a list — it grows engagement, content, UGC, SEO traffic, community, and direct revenue.

It’s one of the few tactics that generates multiple marketing assets at once.

So… Why Do Giveaways Make Money?

Q: For the skeptics: why do giveaways end up profitable?

Jack Paxton:
It’s simple:

1. You run a giveaway - relevant to your audience.
2. Traffic spikes - current audience members refer new audience members.
3. Your list grows.
4. You monetize immediately.
5. You monetize again through email campaigns.
6. You monetize again through retargeting.
7. You monetize again through product launches.

One good giveaway can feed your revenue engine for months — or years.

That’s why I call it a money printer.

Final Thoughts

Q: If a founder wants to try this, where should they begin?

Jack Paxton:
Start small. Pick a prize your ideal customer wants, set up a landing page, and drive traffic with:

• your email list
• social posts
• influencers
• partners
• paid ads (optional)

And if you want the technical work handled for you, BlitzRocket.com makes the process fast and repeatable.